"Franklin Delano Roosevelt" by Alan Brinkley

April 20, 2010|By Eric Arnesen | Special to the Tribune

But the New Deal ground to a halt by the end of the 1930s. Some of RooseveltÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿s political wounds were self inflicted. His so-called Court Packing plan, designed to overcome the Supreme CourtÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿s hostility to many of his programs, backfired badly in 1936. The following year, he believed ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ wrongly, as it turned out ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ that the economyÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿s partial recovery warranted major budget cuts; the result was the ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿Roosevelt Recession,ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ which set back all positive economic indicators and inflicted considerable pain on workers and businesses alike. A conservative resurgence in the midterm election of 1938 guaranteed that the pace of subsequent reform would be glacial ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ or nonexistent.

World War II, with its vast government spending on military goods, generated sufficient demand to accomplish what the New Deal had not: ending the Depression. Like his wartime predecessor Woodrow Wilson over two decades earlier, FDR turned away from domestic to international affairs. The final sections of BrinkleyÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿s short book focus on the war abroad and its impact at home, though RooseveltÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿s fingerprints on much policy in both realms is harder to discern than during the Depression years. When Roosevelt proposed in 1944 to go beyond the limited protections in the 1935 Social Security Act with a second Bill of Rights to ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿guarantee every citizen a living wage, decent housing, health care, and education,ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ his plan came to naught. By the following year, the president, whose health had been declining steadily, was dead.

BrinkleyÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿s biography may be appreciative of FDR, but it is hardly uncritical. Among RooseveltÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿s failings were his inability to understand fully, much less solve, the Great Depression. He proved cool to calls for civil rights and, with the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, he was implicated in ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿one of the greatest violations of civil liberties in American history.ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ In his dealings with wartime ally Joseph Stalin, Roosevelt was too confident that the Soviet dictator ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â¿would cooperate in building a stable and consensual world order."